8.  The applicants, Mr Şehmus Bedir and his father Mr Mehmet Bedir as well as Mr Ahmet Bedir and Ms Zekiye Bedir, who are respectively the brother and sister-in-law of Şehmus Bedir, were born in 1955, 1924, 1945 and 1938 respectively and currently live in Diyarbakır, in Turkey.
9.  At the time of the alleged events giving rise to the present application the applicants were all living in Kışlak, a village of Mazıdağı district in Mardin province, in the then state-of-emergency region of Turkey. Since the 1980s a violent conflict had been going on in the region between the security forces and sections of the Kurdish population in favour of Kurdish autonomy, in particular members of the PKK (Workers' Party of Kurdistan). The inhabitants of the applicants' village were suspected of “aiding and abetting terrorists”; and accordingly they were strictly and frequently controlled by the gendarmes stationed near the village.
10.  The facts of the case are in dispute between the parties and may be summarised as follows.
11.  Until 28 July 1998 the applicants all lived in Kışlak, where Şehmus Bedir was the mayor of the village (muhtar).
12.  In April 1994 gendarmerie forces from Mazıdağı, Seyhan and Aksu Gendarmerie stations and Mardin Central Gendarmerie Command, accompanied by village guards from Sultanköy, raided Kışlak. The security forces set the houses of fifteen families on fire on the ground that they supplied aid to the PKK. The men of the village were taken into custody and subjected to ill-treatment on a number of occasions. Subsequent to these events, the families in question left the village. Ten days after their departure, the remaining houses which belonged to these families were also destroyed.
13.  In 1996 the applicants' village was again raided by gendarmes from Sultanköy and Bilge. Some of the villagers were kept under arrest and released after being beaten up on suspicion of having aided the PKK. The gendarmes also set five houses on fire, including Şehmus Bedir's house. For a certain period of time Şehmus Bedir lived in his father's place but then constructed a new house for his family.
14.  Following this second military operation, the Aksu Gendarmerie Station took control of Kışlak village. The inhabitants were not allowed to enter or leave the village after certain hours and were subjected to food‑rationing. As a result of such pressure, a number of families left the village.
15.  From the end of May 1998, the gendarmes visited the village more often and sometimes stayed for a couple of days. This situation lasted until 19 June 1998, the date on which a soldier was killed by one of his fellows during a dispute. Following this incident, a team of soldiers from Mazıdağı Gendarmerie Command arrived in the village. The soldiers summoned the men to the Gendarmerie Command and told them that they would have ten days in which to choose either to work for the State as a village guard or to leave Kışlak. At the end of the ten days' period, two men from the village went to the Gendarmerie Command and told the authorities that they did not want to become village guards. Upon this response, the soldiers arrived in the village and ordered the inhabitants to evacuate the village. The soldiers refused the inhabitants' request to stay in the village until the end of the harvest.
16.  On 27 July 1998, between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., a number of soldiers from Mazıdağı Gendarmerie Command and Sultanköy and Bilge Gendarmerie Stations arrived in Kışlak. They assembled the villagers in the village square telling them that they would carry out a search of the buildings. Then they threw white powder on the buildings and set them on fire. The villagers who attempted to rescue their animals and save their households were threatened with being thrown into the fire. In the course of the events, the soldiers forced Mehmet Bedir, who is illiterate, to sign a document without informing him of its contents. At around 4 p.m. the inhabitants of the village, including the applicants, left the village and went to Diyarbakır where they sought refuge at their relatives' houses.
17.  At the time of the introduction of their application, the applicants were still living in Diyarbakır and making their living from daily employment. On an unspecified date, Mehmet Bedir attempted to return to Kışlak but was arrested by security forces and questioned in relation to his application pending before the European Court.
18.  In their written statements dated 8 and 16 August 2000, and in response to the Government's observations, Celal Bedir and Hüseyin Demir claimed the following:
Celal Bedir:
“The applicant Mehmet Bedir is my father, Zekiye Bedir is my mother-in-law and the applicants Şehmus and Ahmet are my brothers. My brothers and I lived in Kışlak village since our birth and until our houses were burned down. At the time of the events, Ahmet and Şehmus were not in the village. From time to time they were leaving the village for work. During the events in question, their wives and children were in the village. They owned houses and an important number of households. Şehmus and Ahmet also owned houses in Diyarbakır... The report dated 11 September 1998 according to which, 'the houses of Mehmet and Zekiye Bedir caught fire as a result of bullets which burned the herbs on the roof of the house' is not mine... The day after the events [of 27 July 1998] ... a number of soldiers arrived in the village... and set our house on fire... As regards my statements... of 11 September 1998, ... we were made to sign certain documents without being allowed to read their content. If I recall correctly, the documents had been typed. I do not know about their content...”
Hüseyin Demir:
“On 27 July 1998, the date of the events which took place in our village, I was in Ankara, at my son's place. I therefore did not witness the events... The signature, which appears on the report dated 28 July 1998, cannot therefore be mine. It is a fake... In fact, it is the first time I have seen this document...”
19.  Finally, the applicants have submitted fourteen photographs showing the current state of their houses in Kışlak village. It appears from these photos that the houses in question seem to have burned down together with their contents. The photos further show that the materials used in the construction of the houses are stone and concrete. It is not possible to identify any bushes or grass but only dry land covered by stones around the houses.
20.  The applicants also submitted four newspaper reports concerning the events in question. In its edition of 31 July 1998, a pro-Kurdish newspaper Gündem reported that Şivistan village (Kışlak in Turkish) of Mazıdağı district in Mardin province had been burned down on 28 July 1998 by soldiers and that the inhabitants had been forced to leave. The newspaper noted that this village had already been partly burned in 1995. On the same day, another pro-Kurdish newspaper also reported that Şivistan (Kışlak) had been burned down by soldiers.
21.  On 15 August 1998 the Gündem newspaper reported that on 6 August 1998 Şivistan villagers had submitted criminal complaints, with the assistance of the Diyarbakır Human Rights Association, to the Mazıdağı Public Prosecutor's office. The villagers complained that their houses had been burned down by soldiers. The newspaper also referred to the petition of Zekiye Bedir. On the same day, Ülkede Gündem newspaper also reported the criminal complaints filed by the Şivistan villagers. It was further reported that the families who had been forced to leave their village had been living in difficult conditions in Diyarbakır.
22.  On 27 July 1998, at around 7.45 a.m., two PKK terrorists raided Kışlak village. The terrorists carrying Kalashnikov rifles and a bazooka asked the inhabitants to assemble in the main square of the village. Since the villagers refused to obey the terrorists, the latter opened fire randomly for ten minutes on Mehmet Demir's house which resulted in the killing of two children, namely Öznur Demir (four years old) and Emine Demir (14 years old), who were playing in the yard. The house in which the families of Mehmet, Süleyman and Celal Bedir lived partly burned down as the bushes around the house caught fire as a result of the gunfire discharged by the terrorists.
23.  Having been informed about the attack, the gendarmes came to the village at around 8.30 p.m. on the same day. They established the above-mentioned facts and were told that the terrorists escaped towards the direction of Elmabahçe village.
24.  On 28 July 1998 gendarmes attached to the Mazıdağı Gendarmerie Command carried out an inspection in the village. According to the incident report drawn up by three gendarmes and signed by Hüseyin Demir and Celal Bedir, thirty-two cartridges discharged from Kalashnikov rifles were retrieved from the scene of the shooting. There were bullet holes on the walls of Mehmet Demir's house. The gendarmes found that gunfire discharged by two PKK terrorists had caused the killing of two children and partial burning of Mehmet Demir's house.
25.  On 11 September 1998 statements were taken from Celal Bedir, the son of Mehmet Bedir and an inhabitant of Kışlak village, by two gendarme officers. Celal Bedir stated that he had moved to Çınar together with his family following the attack perpetrated by PKK terrorists on Kışlak on 27 July 1998. On the latter date, at around 7-7.30 a.m., he heard gunfire on his way from Bağlıca village to Kışlak. He had not seen the persons who had fired but later learned from his wife that PKK members opened fire on Hatice Demir's house. He immediately went to the house of Hatice Demir to see what had happened. Hatice Demir told him that the PKK militants had opened fire and had killed her younger daughter and wounded the elder. When he returned to his home, where he lived together with his father, he saw that the grass on the roof had caught fire. He immediately informed the gendarmerie instead of trying to put out the fire.
26.  Celal Bedir further claimed that his brothers, Şehmus and Ahmet, had not been living in Kışlak during the last ten years and that they did not own property in the village. Furthermore, they had been involved in the pro‑Kurdish political party, the HADEP. Having been influenced by this party, they made the allegation that their property had been burned down by the security forces in order to obtain compensation. On 27 July 1998, only one house – that of his father – caught fire and was partly damaged because of the gunfire discharged by the terrorists.
27.  Subsequent to the impugned events, the inhabitants of Kışlak village left their place of residence and moved to other parts of the country. According to a report dated 27 March 2000, which was drawn up and signed by three gendarme officers, it appears that the villagers started returning to their homes and that there are currently seven families living in Kışlak.
28.  In their supplementary observations dated 7 February 2005, the Government submitted that the number of families that had returned to Kışlak village had reached twenty-five. They noted that these people had left the village due to terrorism, or for economic or other reasons. Currently the village is open to settlement. The applicant Ahmet Bedir left the village before 28 June 1998 and the remaining applicants also left the village voluntarily and settled in Diyarbakır.
29.  The applicants Mehmet Bedir and Süleyman Bedir (the husband of Zekiye Bedir) still live in Kışlak. Zekiye Bedir lives in Istanbul with her children and goes to the village only in summer in order to cultivate her lands.
30.  Şehmus and Ahmet Bedir live in Diyarbakır, where they run a grocery store, and frequently travel to Kışlak in order to cultivate their lands.
31.  On 18 August 1998 Şehmus Bedir, as the muhtar of the village, and Ahmet and Zekiye Bedir filed petitions with the Offices of the Mazıdağ District Governor, the Mardin Governor, the Governor of the state-of-emergency region in Diyarbakır, the General Command in Ankara, the Chief of Staff, the Ministers of Defence and the Interior, the Prime Minister, the President of the Republic and, finally, the central offices of eight political parties in Ankara. They asked the aforementioned authorities to remedy the damage that they had sustained and to allow them to return to their village. However, they did not receive any response to their petitions.
32.  In their observations, the Government disputed Şehmus Bedir's allegation that he was the muhtar of Kışlak at the relevant time. In his observations in reply to those of the Government, Mr Bedir admitted that he had not been the muhtar of the village and that he had signed those petitions as the muhtar in order to draw the attention of the authorities to the events in question.
33.  Meanwhile, on 6 August 1998 the applicants lodged a petition with the Mazıdağı Chief Public Prosecutor's office complaining that the gendarmes from the local gendarmerie station had burned down their houses together with their households and inflicted ill-treatment on the inhabitants.
34.  In the absence of any response from the authorities, the applicants sought the assistance of a lawyer in order to pursue their complaints in domestic law. Thus, on 21 December 1998 the applicants' legal representative applied to the Chief Public Prosecutor's office and requested information on the state of the proceedings concerning the criminal complaints filed by the applicants.
35.  The Public Prosecutor informed the applicants through their legal representative that, subsequent to their complaints, an investigation had been commenced against Lieutenant U.Ö., who was the commander of the Mazıdağı Gendarmerie Station at the relevant time, and that the case file had been transferred to the Directorate General of Criminal Affairs of the Ministry of Justice requesting leave to instigate criminal proceedings.
36.  By a letter of 4 February 1999, the above-mentioned Directorate informed the applicants' legal representative that the investigation carried out into the applicants' allegation indicated that there was no ground to commit Lieutenant U.Ö. for trial.